A time server is a server computer that reads the actual time from a reference clock and distributes this information to its clients using a computer network, such as the Internet. The time server may be a local network time server or an internet time server. The most important and widely-used protocol for distributing and synchronising time is the Network Time Protocol (NTP). NTP is a protocol for synchronizing the clocks of computer systems over packet-switched, variable-latency data networks.
Despite being synchronized to an NTP server, the system time of an NFS server may be different from the system time of a client connected to the NFS server. FIG. 1 illustrates such scenario. A client 106 has its own system time 112. A NFS server 104 is synced to a NTP server 102. Accordingly, the system time 110 of NFS server 104 is synced to the system time 108 of NTP server 102. System time 112 of client 106 may be behind system time 110 of client 104.
This time delay can cause time-dependent build steps on the client to fail since NFS server's notion of now was a few minutes in the future from the point of view of client 106. Thus, a need exists for a technique to use the NFS server as a reliable timing source.